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Batchelor's Delight

The South Sea ship of John Cook and Edward Davis from 1683 to the end of 1687, taken near Cape Sierra Leone, flagship of the buccaneer fleet of ten sail in the Bay of Panama in 1685 at thirty-six guns and one hundred and fifty-six men, and home round Cape Horn at Christmas 1687.

Launchedautumn 1683ToNot establishedAlso writtenBatchelors Delight (Lionel Wafer's narrative, 1699); Charlotte Amalia of Gluckstadt (a modern popular account only; contradicted by the primary account of her taking)

Three men who sailed in this ship went into print about the voyage, and one of them names her. Lionel Wafer, her surgeon, wrote of the day the company broke up at Realejo: "I staid with Captain Davis, in the Batchelors Delight". William Dampier sailed in her and never set the name down; Ambrose Cowley, who kept her navigation as master, described her capture without it. Dampier's own rating in her is nowhere recorded.6,3

Out of Virginia

She is not the ship the voyage began in. Cook's company brought their prizes into Virginia the April before and fitted out the best of them there, a ship of good force carrying eighteen guns. They also agreed on rules, particularly of temperance and sobriety, given the length of the voyage. On 23 August 1683 they sailed from Achamack in Virginia under Captain John Cook, about seventy men aboard, bound for the South Seas.7,8,1

The ship they changed into

The exchange happened on the Guinea coast. Near Cape Sierra Leone in the autumn of 1683 they boarded and carried away a European ship and shifted into her. Cowley calls her a new ship of forty guns and gives no nationality. Sir Albert Gray and the Dictionary of National Biography make her Danish, Gray at thirty-six guns. An examination enclosed in a Jamaica dispatch of August 1686 has Cook coming out in a Dutch ship of thirty-six guns. A modern popular account names her the Charlotte Amalia of Gluckstadt and has her won at cards.2

Dampier was aboard for the same weeks. The company had meant to touch nowhere until the Straits of Magellan; the winds in ten degrees north changed their minds, and they steered for Guinea and came to the mouth of the River of Sherboro. There they scrubbed the ship's bottom, filled their water casks and bought two puncheons of rice, and about the middle of November 1683 they left. No prize. No change of ships.9

Cook dies, and the quartermaster takes his place

Cook got no further than the Central American coast. He was taken sick at Juan Fernandez and died of a sudden within two or three leagues of Cape Blanco, and was buried a league within the cape. Gray's introduction puts the death in June 1684. Cowley's index puts the burial at Cape Tres Puntas. The date now repeated everywhere, 19 July 1684, is the day Dampier gives to what happened next.4

The day before the company left the bay of Caldera, Edward Davis, their quartermaster, was made captain by consent of all the company, for it was his place by succession. What came with the command was thin. Davis's authority was an old commission fallen to him at the decease of Captain Cook, who had taken it off Captain Tristian; a French governor at Petit Guaves offered a fresh one later, which he took. On 20 July they sailed from Caldera with Captain Eaton and a prize brought down from the Galapagos, for Ria Lexa.10,11,12,5

Those islands were the company's larder, and the two men who wrote about them disagree on what was in it. Cowley charted and named the group and set down about fifteen hundred bags of flour laid ashore. Dampier, in the same ship, has a much larger quantity put on the beach, printed as "sooo packs". Nobody has reconciled the two.13,14

Thirty-six guns in the Bay of Panama

In the Bay of Panama in 1685 she led a buccaneer fleet of ten sail, and Dampier counts it ship by ship. First on the list, thirty-six guns and a hundred and fifty-six men, most of them English. Swan's Cygnet comes next at sixteen guns and a hundred and forty. Those two were the only ships of force in the fleet; the rest carried nothing but small arms. Swan and Townley came aboard Davis to settle how to engage the Spaniards, who bore down in fourteen sail besides periaguas. Thirty-six is her force in 1685, not at her taking.15

Cape Horn at Christmas

At Realejo on 27 August 1685 the company divided. Swan was going west in the Cygnet and Dampier chose to go with him. Wafer stayed with Davis in the Batchelors Delight, and Davis was for going again to the southward.16

At the latter end of 1687 they were at Juan Fernandez again, cleaned the ship, quitted their bark and stood over to the mainland for the sheep of Mocha before the passage round Terra del Fuego. Running south they did not well know what course to steer, having very indifferent seamen aboard. On Christmas day 1687 they were just clear of the storm, off Cape Horn, in sixty-two degrees forty-five minutes south.17

The pardon met them in the Caribbean. Off the Caribbee Islands Wafer went aboard Edwin Carter's Barbados sloop, had from him the news of King James's Proclamation to pardon and call in the buccaneers, and went on in Carter's ship to the Delaware and up into Pennsylvania. Later he came back down that river with Davis and John Hingson, carted their chests over a neck of land into the Bohemia River, and so down the Chesapeake.18

What the evidence does not settle

Name and origin

  • Independent evidence for the name Batchelor's Delight, her nationality and earlier name

Armament

  • Thirty-six or forty guns

Later fate

  • What became of the ship after the South Sea voyage

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The company sailed from Accomack in Virginia on 23 August 1683 under Captain John Cook with about seventy men, bound for the South Seas; from 14 February 1684 it lay in a storm west of Cape Horn that held until 3 March, and on 22 March 1684 it raised Juan Fernandez and took off the Moskito Indian William, who had been left there alone since 1681. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Printed participant narrative: William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (1697), quoted from the 1927 Argonaut Press text: "August 23 1683 we sailed from Achamack in Virginia under the command of Captain Cook bound for the South Seas"
  2. On the Guinea coast near Cape Sierra Leone in the autumn of 1683 the company boarded and carried away a European ship and shifted into her, but her nationality and force are unsettled: Cowley, the only participant to describe the taking, calls her "a new Ship of 40 Guns" without a nationality, Sir Albert Gray and the Dictionary of National Biography call her Danish and Gray puts her at thirty-six guns, the earliest independent manuscript notice describes John Cook as "said to have come out in a Dutch ship of thirty-six guns", and a modern popular account names her the Charlotte Amalia of Gluckstadt and has her won at cards; the two participants disagree even on the vessel the company left Virginia in, Dampier's seventy men against Cowley's Revenge of eight guns and fifty-two men. Disputed The sources disagree, and we say how. Printed participant narratives, calendared manuscript and signed biographical dictionary article: William Ambrosia Cowley, Cowley's Voyage Round the Globe, in William Hacke, A Collection of Original Voyages (1699); Sir Albert Gray, introduction to Dampier's A New Voyage Round the World (1927); J. K. Laughton, "Davis, Edward", Dictionary of National Biography, volume 14 (1888); examination of Richard Arnold enclosed in Molesworth to Sunderland, 4 August 1686, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 12, item 805 I; John Fitzhugh Millar, "Buccaneers Davis, Wafer and Hingson, and the Ship Batchelors Delight" (2010)
  3. The vessel's name is attested in print by a participant, the surgeon Lionel Wafer, who writes of the parting at Realejo in August 1685 "I staid with Captain Davis in the Batchelors Delight", while Dampier's narrative passes over the seizure of the ship in silence, never names his own vessel in the pages examined, and no calendared colonial paper found for this record names her. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Printed participant narratives: Lionel Wafer, A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699; 1704 edition used); William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (1697); Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volumes 12 to 14
  4. The date and place of Captain John Cook's death are disputed: Dampier, who was aboard, has him die "of a sudden" within two or three leagues of Cape Blanco at the beginning of July 1684 and buried a league within the cape, Gray's 1927 introduction gives June 1684, Cowley's index places the burial at Cape Tres Puntas, and the widely repeated modern date of 19 July 1684 is the day Dampier assigns to the election of Edward Davis. Disputed The sources disagree, and we say how. Printed participant narratives: William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (1697); Sir Albert Gray, introduction to the same (1927); Cowley's Voyage Round the Globe, in Hacke, A Collection of Original Voyages (1699)
  5. On 19 July 1684 Edward Davis, the company's quartermaster, was made captain in Dampier's words "by consent of all the company; for it was his place by succession", the vote ratifying a right the office already carried. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Printed participant narrative: William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (1697), quoted from the 1927 Argonaut Press text
  6. William Dampier and Lionel Wafer both sailed in the ship and William Ambrosia Cowley served in her as navigator and master, but Dampier's own rating in her is not established. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narratives and editorial apparatus: A New Voyage Round the World (1697); A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699; 1704 edition scanned); editorial introduction to A New Voyage Round the World (Project Gutenberg Australia eBook 0500461h)
  7. Dampier records that Cook's company brought their prizes into Virginia in the April before the voyage and fitted out the best of them there, a ship of good force carrying eighteen guns. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), chapter III, under the running head 'His Departure from Virginia'
  8. Dampier records that before sailing the company agreed on particular rules, especially of temperance and sobriety, because of the length of the intended voyage, and that on 23 August 1683 they sailed from Achamack in Virginia under the command of Captain Cook, bound for the South Seas. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), chapter III, the sailing from Virginia
  9. Dampier's account of the Guinea coast records that the company had meant to touch nowhere until the Straits of Magellan, that contrary winds in ten degrees north sent them to the coast of Guinea and the mouth of the River of Sherboro, that they there scrubbed the ship's bottom, filled their water casks and bought two puncheons of rice, and that they departed about the middle of November 1683. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), chapter IV, page 78, under the running head 'River of Sherboro in Guinea'
  10. Dampier records that the day before the company left the bay of Caldera Edward Davis, the company's quartermaster, was made captain by consent of all the company, for it was his place by succession. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), chapter VI, the bay of Caldera
  11. Dampier records that Davis's authority was an old commission which fell to him by inheritance at the decease of Captain Cook, who had taken it from Captain Tristian, and that Davis later accepted a fresh commission from the governor of Petit Guaves. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), chapter VII, the offer of blank commissions from Petit Guaves
  12. Dampier records that on the twentieth day of July the company sailed from the bay of Caldera with Captain Eaton and the prize they had brought from the Galapagos, directing their course for Ria Lexa. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), chapter VI, the departure from the bay of Caldera
  13. Cowley charted and named the Galapagos Islands and recorded about fifteen hundred bags of flour laid up ashore there in 1684 for later use. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: Cowley's Voyage round the Globe, in W. Hacke, A Collection of Original Voyages (1699), part I
  14. Dampier records that at the Galapagos the company put ashore a quantity of flour, printed in the copy read for this record as "sooo packs", as a reserve against need before they left the islands. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), chapter V, the stay at the Galapagos
  15. Dampier's list of the buccaneer fleet of ten sail in the Bay of Panama in 1685 gives its leading ship, the one Captain Swan and Captain Townley came aboard of Captain Davis to concert the action in, thirty-six guns and one hundred and fifty-six men, most of them English, with Swan's sixteen guns and one hundred and forty men the only other ship of force in the fleet, against a Spanish force of fourteen sail besides periaguas. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage Round the World (1697), page 207, under the running head 'Spanish Fleet from Lima: their Strength'
  16. At the parting at Realejo on 27 August 1685 Captain Swan in the Cygnet was going to the westward and Dampier chose to go with him, while Wafer stayed with Captain Davis in the Batchelors Delight, who was for going again to the southward. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699; 1704 edition scanned), page 219, marginal note 'Harbour of Realeja'
  17. Wafer records that the ship was at Juan Fernandez again at the latter end of 1687, where they cleaned her, quitted their bark and stood over to the mainland for the sheep of Mocha for the voyage round Terra del Fuego, that they did not well know what course to steer having but very indifferent seamen aboard, and that on Christmas day 1687 they were just clear of the storm off Cape Horn in the latitude of 62 degrees 45 minutes south. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699; 1704 edition scanned), pages 215 to 216
  18. Wafer records that off the Caribbee Islands he had from Mr Edwin Carter in a Barbados sloop the news of King James's Proclamation to pardon and call in the buccaneers and went on in Carter's ship to the Delaware and up into Pennsylvania, and that he afterwards came back down that river with Captain Davis and John Hingson, carting their chests and goods over a small neck of land into the Bohemia River and so down the great bay of Chesapeake. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period narrative: A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699; 1704 edition scanned), pages 223 to 224, the conclusion